→ August 26, 2021
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Red Rising.

I wasn’t familiar with Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series until a review copy of the game, also called Red Rising, showed up a few months ago. My review of the game, which I enjoyed quite a bit, is up now over at Paste, and as part of my research for that game I read the first novel in the series. It’s not as good as the game is, with a fairly juvenile plot married to enough graphic violence to keep it from the YA section, but reading the book did help me understand the character cards in the game more and see how well designer Jamey Stegmaier integrated the two.

The novel tells the story of Darrow, a particularly skilled miner of helium-2 who lives and works in a colony beneath the surface of Mars with other “Reds.” The dystopian society of the novel has humanity stratified into castes identified by colors, with Golds at the top and Reds at the bottom, taking up the most dangerous jobs and unaware of how far civilization has advanced on Mars’s surface. A rebel group saves Darrow from execution and drafts him to infiltrate the world up top, hacking his body to make him appear to be a Gold so he can try to enter the competition held at the Institute to identify future leaders for the Martian government, and thus eventually topple the Golds’ rule from within. After he succeeds, he finds himself in a Lord of the Flies-like environment where some unknown number of teenagers are separated into a dozen Houses and must fight each other – and try to survive without ready sources of food or water – to determine who will be Primus of each House and who will be the ultimate winner of the contest.

The setting of the novel is almost incidental to everything that happens within it – Brown just needed a world where it was plausible that there’d be a de facto slave caste living beneath the surface, believing that they were working towards the noble goal of creating a habitable planet up above, unaware that this had already occurred and they were simply held in bondage. The science aspect here is really shaky, from the idea of terraforming Pluto (surface temperature -226 C) or a thriving colony on Venus (surface temperature 475 C, with rainfall so acidic its pH is negative) to the way Brown introduces random advanced technologies when the plot requires them, but he has created a fairly strong set of core characters around which to build the story.

Darrow is a well-rounded protagonist whose rage often clouds his judgment, so while his rapid ascent to one of the leadership roles in his House in the game is rather convenient, he’s also prone to missteps, from rash decisions to difficulty deciding whom to trust, that create tension and move the story along in more credible ways. Cassius, an early ally who doesn’t know any of Darrow’s secrets, is more complex than the typical “arrogant scion” archetype, while their house-mate Sevro is an endearing nut who runs around in wolf skins and forms a ragtag army of misfits from the House who become the Howlers. Mustang is the most well-defined woman character in the book, which skews heavily male among core characters, although the depth of her personality doesn’t become apparent until near the end of the story. Some of the various lieutenants in Darrow’s armies grow over the course of the book and acquire enough character of their own to be more than just redshirts (or goldshirts), which also made their character cards in the game more meaningful.

The story is gratuitously violent from shortly after Darrow enters the institute, which may be the point, or just a very grim view of humanity, but it has the same problem I have with most superhero movies – solving problems by beating the hell out of your enemy. Darrow eventually comes around to a less-violent approach, but still a violent one, and the way the great game works involves physically subduing your rivals if you don’t actually kill them. Darrow is clever, and often thinks like a master tactician, so when the result of a battle is bodily dismemberment, it’s unsatisfying, because the character should be capable of more than this – but I’m not sure if Brown himself is.

Red Rising has a real conclusion, while still leaving the long-term story intact for future novels, which now number two in Darrow’s story plus two more set in the same universe. I’m not that driven to continue, however, because I’m expecting more of the same – Darrow will co-opt some rivals, kill a few enemies (or have his minions do it and then bemoan their level of bloodthirst), and eventually avenge the death that started the whole ball rolling. It was a quick enough read, but the story just isn’t that different from most of those in the YA fantasy/sci-fi space.

Next up: Jasper Fforde’s recommendation of Mil Millington’s Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About.

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→ August 24, 2021
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Terror Below.

The post-apocalyptic game Terror Below came out in 2019, from Renegade Game Studios and designer Mike Elliott (Thunderstone Quest), and asks players to fight giant worms that are living below the planet’s surface, occasionally poking their giant, disgusting heads up to lay eggs and spread rubble across the board. If you like the way co-operative games like Pandemic or the Forbidden series make the board harder to play as the game progresses, but want to try that in a competitive game, Terror Below might be your cup of tea.

The board is a 6×6 grid that has five location tiles scattered on it and, at the start of the game, has at least four worm eggs, one in each color, and some rubble strewn across it. Players can move their pawns by playing vehicle cards, with action point values from 2 to 7, to one of the three worm cards currently on the board. You may use action points to move one space, clear one piece of rubble from an adjacent space, pick up all the eggs in a space (which ends your turn immediately), or deliver an egg to a location. Those egg deliveries can earn you bounties, of which there are always four public ones at the top of the board, for victory points.

Between each player’s turn, you check to see if any of the worms on the board have enough vehicle cards played to their spaces to meet the number on the card’s lower left, which would then trigger a worm attack. Each worm is tied to a target token, numbered 1, 2, and 3, that starts in a space indicated on the worm card but may move as players play vehicle cards or use other powers. When a worm attacks, you put an egg where its target token was, then spread rubble tokens in a defined pattern around that target token, with a maximum of two rubble tokens per space. (Players can’t move into a space with rubble on it unless they have a card that specifically allows them to do so.) Then you discard that worm card and draw a new one, placing that target token at the new card’s coordinates.

If your pawn gets caught in a worm attack, because rubble or an egg lands on the space where it is, you must defend yourself or die – although you can die three times, so it’s not that serious. You start the game with one weapon card and one item card, and you can gain new ones every time you collect three rubble tokens. Weapons are more valuable, since you need them to fight off worm attacks. If you can use your weapons to do enough damage to match the number in a heart on the worm card, you defeat it, and get either a matching bounty card or 1 victory point. Items do have their uses as well, but I would rather be caught without an item than without a weapon in this game. (Hats, permanent item cards that give you one small but useful additional power, are the exception. They’re valuable.)

Each player also gets three Leader cards, and uses one at a time to gain some small extra power – but they’re especially for tracking how often you die in a worm attack. If your Leader is killed, you flip it over and use the next one instead. If all three of your Leaders are killed, and you don’t deliver any eggs to the Hospital to get to resuscitate one of them, you are out of the game.

Play continues until one player has at least 20 victory points from bounty cards (worth 3-4), other worm kills (1 point each), and various other bonuses available throughout the game.  Terror Below also has a solo mode that asks you to complete an objective (deliver eggs to 4 of the 5 location tiles, defeat at least 3 different worm types) before 15 worm attacks are resolved, while also increasing those attacks’ frequency. There’s a guaranteed attack every turn in solo mode, and on some turns you’ll have two attacks, as you add one extra vehicle card at random to one of the three worm cards on the board after each turn you take, so if any worm card hits its limit, it attacks too. There are three scenarios, but they’re each replayable, and two of them present a sufficient challenge.

The strength of Terror Below is the way it takes the Pandemic mechanic of raising the threat level – here, you’re spreading rubble, making more of the board impassable until someone clears it – and puts it into a competitive game. Where it loses me is the vehicle cards, which give too wide a range of action points for each turn, and the rule that says your turn ends when you pick up any egg, which I can understand (it forces you to think about efficient routes) but which ultimately plays as a nuisance. It’s a solid game, with a good theme, probably one that deserves a wider audience than it received, but I’m not sure it’ll stay in my collection for the long term.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ August 21, 2021
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Stick to baseball, 8/21/21.

Two new posts since the last roundup for subscribers to the Athletic – my list of the five farm systems that have improved the most since February; and a scouting blog from two weekends ago covering some Rays, O’s, Nats, and Tigers prospects. I’ve been unable to do much this past week due to an illness in the family, but hope to be back on the road this upcoming week.

On the board game front, I had three reviews go up earlier this month. At Paste, I reviewed the great new family game Juicy Fruits and the midweight game CloudAge. For Polygon, I reviewed the upcoming second edition of Great Western Trail, which is still the top-rated complex game on my overall rankings.

On of the Keith Law Show this week, I spoke to one of my favorite authors, Jasper Fforde, author of sixteen books, including The Constant Rabbit; and then had old pal Joe Sheehan as a guest this week.. And on The Athletic Baseball Show, I got the band back together with Eric Karabell. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and Spotify.

My newsletter is getting back on track, although I didn’t send one this week since I didn’t write anything for any other sites beyond my own. You should sign up, though. Or you might consider buying my book, The Inside Game, now out in paperback.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: Ed Yong, whose coverage of the pandemic for The Atlantic (not my employer) won him a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize, writes about how the pandemic is now likely to end: with a long, tapering whimper, rather than a bang. And much of it is our own stupid fault.
  • A new journal article in Cell looks at all of the evidence on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and concludes that a zoonotic origin is far more likely than a so-called “lab leak.”
  • ProPublica reveals just how much some high-income donors saved in taxes by helping fund the 2017 GOP Tax Bill. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), a major science denialist, was particularly helpful to his wealthy supporters.
  • The Special Inspector General on Afghanistan Reconstruction has released their report, titled What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction. Setting aside the question of whether it goes as far as it needs to go, the report doesn’t shy away from blaming U.S. policymakers who believed we could build a nation, threw good money after bad, and had perhaps the most expensive case of the planning fallacy in history.
  • What can you do in the wake of last week’s apocalyptic report on the climate? Anything at all. Just do something.
  • A reader contribution: The Guardian profiles the woman who goes through NYC residents’ garbage and highlights their waste and profligacy on social media.
  • The Washington Post tells the awful story of a Missouri widow who lost her husband to COVID-19 and is now facing financial ruin.
  • I missed this in June, but a bill to legalize cannabis in Delaware failed over concerns that it wouldn’t create sufficient racial equity in the resulting system. Given how disproportionately cannabis laws have affected Black residents of Delaware (and all states), I think it’s worth crafting a bill that ensures they’ll share in the spoils of the new industry.
  • College officials are concerned about students showing fake vaccination cards rather than complying with vaccine mandates. The answer to that seems to be simple – use a fake card, get expelled, no refunds.
  • The Federation of State Medical Boards’ Board of Directors issued a statement that said that medical professionals who spread COVID-19 misinformation should lose their licenses. I’ll believe it when I see someone actually lose their license, but this is a good warning, at least.
  • A law professor writes that vaccine mandates are legal as well as based on solid science.
  • And that’s good, because the Nevada Board of Health just voted to require COVID-19 vaccines for college students in the state.
  • The anti-vaccine grift might be becoming untenable. The victims of cons are often unwilling to admit that they’ve been conned. A little help from law enforcement wouldn’t hurt, though.
  • Plenty of COVID deniers and minimizers like to claim that the virus has little effect on children (or did, pre-Delta). That’s highly misleading and takes advantage of a cognitive illusion called the contrast effect.
  • A spate of fabricated research papers hit certain academic journals this spring, and they were only caught because of certain “tortured phrases” (“colossal information” instead of “big data”) that caught other researchers’ eyes.
  • That Indiana doctor behind the viral video where he repeats anti-vaccine myths won’t even admit if he’s vaccinated and isn’t board-certified in any specialty. He should lose his license, though, because he’s full of shit.
  • Wilmington has a great little restaurant scene for such a small city, and for my money, Bardea is the best restaurant we’ve got. It’s improved even more since the pandemic began, as chef-owner Antonio DiMeo has been experimenting with koji and other fermentation techniques to boost flavors and create a more plant-forward menu.
  • The board game café chain Snakes & Lattes hired decorated chef Aaron McKay as COO as they try to establish the cafés as food destinations, not just board game spots where you get chicken tenders and soggy fries.
  • Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that has long been linked to neurological damage in children, will finally be banned for use on food products after the Trump administration ignored scientists’ pleas to prohibit it.
  • This seems like it should be bigger news: A U.S. lab claims it has approached the goal of nuclear fusion ignition, using a laser to start a fusion reaction in hydrogen fuel that could become self-sustaining, providing enough heat to keep the fuel mass at a high enough temperature for fusion to continue. In theory, it’s a potential source of clean, limitless energy. It sounds too good to be true.
  • In a similar vein, did Google Labs really create “time crystals,” an entirely new phase of matter that would be a huge leap forward towards the goal of real quantum computing?
  • Board game news: Cranio Creations announced a new deluxe edition of the classic worker placement game Lorenzo il Magnifico.
  • Capstone announced pre-orders for Corrosion , a new game where your machines can rust and become useless, which I love as a concept and which also reminds me of a key plot point in Baldur’s Gate.
  • Publisher Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) laid off its entire staff last week and appears to be entering bankruptcy.
  • I don’t remember the 2007 game Get Bit!, but it’s getting a brand-new edition, now on Kickstarter.
  • And finally, this was highly entertaining. What better way to mock a lunatic than by setting his deranged words to music? (There’s some great guitar work here, too.)
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→ August 20, 2021
→ By

Abandon All Artichokes.

Abandon All Artichokes is a game as silly as its title, taking one tiny sliver of strategy from deckbuilders and making an entire game out of it: Get rid of your artichoke cards so that you become the first player to draw a fresh hand of five cards without any artichokes in it. It’s quick, and fun, and easy to learn for any player old enough to read the text on the other vegetable cards.

Each player in Abandon All Artichokes starts with ten cards, all of which are artichokes, and which are the only artichoke cards that you’ll use in the game. The main deck in the game comprises cards of other vegetables, each of which has an action associated with it. There’s a garden row of five cards that you refill after each player’s turn. On your turn, you must take one card from the garden row into your hand. You may then play as many cards from your hand as you’d like, using the actions printed on them, and then end your turn by discarding everything that’s left, artichokes and other. Then you draw a fresh hand of five cards, shuffling your discard pile into your deck if necessary, and play continues.

The main power to get rid of artichokes is composting. Four vegetables let you directly compost an artichoke card:

  • A carrot lets you compost two artichokes in your hand, but you can’t take another action that turn, and you compost the carrot too.
  • A broccoli lets you compost one artichoke if you have at least three in your hand.
  • An onion lets you compost one artichoke, but you then give the onion to an opponent by putting it on their discard pile.
  • An eggplant lets you compost one artichoke, and then players exchange two cards from their hands (of their choice).

There’s also the potato, which lets you draw the top card from your deck and compost it if it’s an artichoke; and the beet, for which you and an opponent each reveal a random card from your hands, and compost them if they’re both artichokes, exchanging them if they’re not.

The other vegetables don’t involve composting at all. Corn must be played with one artichoke, and it lets you take any card from the garden row and put it on top of your deck (so it will be in your hand on your next turn). A leek lets you reveal the top card of an opponent’s deck, after which you can take it or put it on their discard pile. A pepper lets you take a card from your discard pile and put it on top of your deck, which is nice for getting a strong card right back into your hand.

The key to success in Abandon All Artichokes is speed – these games go quickly, often faster than the 20 minute time shown on the box. You don’t have to get rid of all of your artichokes to win, although that doesn’t hurt; you just have to draw a hand of five cards without any artichokes in it. That could also involve composting a bunch of artichokes and also adding as many cards as you can do your deck so your odds of drawing five straight cards without an artichoke go up, but I haven’t seen anyone win that way, playing live or online. I think the slim deck strategy is the better one, not too far off from the Chapel strategy in the original Dominion, but it’s possible that with more players or the right vegetables you could pull off a “fat” deck strategy and win.

The box says it’s for ages 10+, but I would say that if your kid can read at a third-grade level they can probably play this game. There isn’t a lot of deep strategy here that would be beyond an 8-year-old’s reach, and the 20-minute playing time (if that) is great for all ages. It’s only about $13 everywhere I can find it, including at amazon, and even better comes in a small artichoke-shaped box. The ceiling on a game like this isn’t super high, but I love it as a family filler game.

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→ August 12, 2021
→ By

The Old Devils.

Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim is one of my all-time favorite comic novels, incorporating humor low and high, with lots of the excessive alcohol consumption that would characterize much of Amis’ fiction (and non-fiction, and perhaps some of his own life). Thirty-two years after the publication of that book, his first, he won the Booker Prize for The Old Devils, which still has his voice and humor but is far less frivolous, as it covers a quartet of older Welshmen and their long-suffering wives as they face old age, mortality, and the disappointments of lives less than well-lived.

The author/poet Alun Weaver and his wife Rhiannon – oh, that’s just the beginning of the Welshness here – are returning to Wales after many years away, and their arrival has stirred up many old friendships, rivalries, and secret romances among their group of old friends, including Peter, Charlie, Percy, Malcolm, Gwen, Muriel, Sophie, Siân, and Angharad. Rhiannon and Peter were old flames; Alun appears to have slept with several of the others’ wives, and resumes doing so straight off the train; and there’s a tremendous amount of drink, interrupted by brief meditations on alcohol’s deleterious effects on health and waistline.

While there’s obvious humor to mine from scene after scene of men drinking themselves into various stages of stupor, often finishing at one pub only to have one of them suggest that they repair to another one, or to his apartment where there’s more strong drink to be had, the tone of The Old Devils is unmistakably darker. The sun is setting on these men in various ways, none more so than Alun, who gets an unwelcome sense of how slight his popularity is when there’s barely any media at all attending his arrival, and who finds himself constantly in the shadow of the poet Brydan (a stand-in for Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, whom Amis apparently disdained).

I rattled off those names to make a small point about Amis’s writing here. The men’s names are mostly bog-standard, recognizable then and now other than the ‘u’ in Alun’s name. The women, on the other hand, have the more traditionally Welsh names, none more so than Siân (pronounced a bit like “she-AHN”) or Angharad (“an-KHAR-ad,” although the kh sound is softer than in Hebrew or Russian). Men are ordinary creatures in this book, while women are inscrutable. There’s a clear difference in their depictions, and while none of the men other than Alun is easily distinguished from any other – Charlie is afraid of the dark, of all things, and that’s what counts as a character trait – the women are even more two-dimensional, if you could even call them that. Muriel is a bit of a shrew, and there’s a running gag about Angharad and whichever fellow is her husband, but the women especially blend together because by and large they are props, not characters.

The Old Devils works when Amis aims his eye at the men at the story’s heart as they contemplate where they’ve landed in life. Alun is hardly a sympathetic protagonist, but his own difficulty accepting that his literary legacy is less than he wished it to be – did Amis harbor the same doubts about his own? – is one of the most haunting threads in the book, even if we’re not sorry to see Alun get his ego dented a few times. Peter’s unhappy marriage to Muriel is compounded by his own financial dependence on her – he’s squandered years where he might have forged a career of his own, and now that she’s threatening to sell their house and leave him, he has an uncertain financial future and no real identity of his own. Each of these men has wasted a good part of his life, and they all seem to be approaching old age with the plan of drinking their way through It, until the inevitable happens to one of them and the rest have to deal with the aftermath.

I probably enjoyed the Welshiness of the novel more than anything, as my in-laws are both Welsh natives and I’ve been learning some of the language on Duolingo, enough to catch a number of the Welsh words Amis slipped into the dialogue. He taught for many years at Swansea University, on the south coast of Wales, and described his time there as some of his happiest years, which is probably why the novel seems so understanding of Welsh language and culture – this at a time when the language was still not taught in schools – and derogatory towards those who dismiss it as parochial, or just as a nuisance, as when road signs appear in Welsh to the confusion of the main characters. Even as Amis gives us drink as an inadequate escape from life’s sorrows, he can’t avoid showing some affection for the novel’s setting or background people, or, of course, for the drinks themselves. (Except Irish cream, which he properly treats as the treacle it is.) I can see why Amis won the Booker for this book, but I did miss the madcap humor that made Lucky Jim such a treat.

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→ August 8, 2021
→ By

Stick to baseball, 8/8/21.

My one new post this week for subscribers to The Athletic is a long scouting notebook with my observations on players from the Nats, Rays, Orioles, and Tigers’ systems, including five former first-round picks. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

On The Keith Law Show this week, I spoke to Dr. Katy Milkman, author of the new book How to Change, about we can use psychology and knowledge of how our brains work to enact real, lasting behavior change in ourselves. You can subscribe via iTunes or Spotify. And on the Athletic Baseball Show, I got back together with my old Baseball Today partner in crime Eric Karabell (also on Spotify).

My email newsletter will return this week, and I’m going to give away a copy of a new board game (the publisher sent me two copies, so I offered to do a giveaway and they were on board, get it?) to one random subscriber.

And now, the links…

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→ August 5, 2021
→ By

Klawchat 8/5/21.

Subscribers to the Athletic can check out my ranking of the top 50 prospects in the minors right now as well as all of my trade deadline breakdowns.

Keith Law: I’m getting older too. Klawchat.

Kevin: Crossing my fingers that whenever they sign a new CBA, they allow trades of draft picks. Are you in favor of this as well?
Keith Law: I wrote a column for ESPN in either 2006 or 2007 arguing that it was in all parties’ best interests to allow trading of draft picks. My view hasn’t changed. Unfortunately neither side has a strong incentive to push for this in the CBA negotiations.

davealden53: I find referring to the extra-inning gimmicks as “phantom runners” to be confusing imprecise.  Those are real flesh-and-blood players on second base, unlike the imaginary runners of backyard wiffle-ball games.  What’s “phantom” is how the players reached second base.  I propose retiring “phantom runners” in favor of “phantom doubles”.  But whatever we call it, I hope it goes away.
Keith Law: Yeah, call it whatever you want, it’s gimmickry of the worst sort.

Frank: The biggest issue to me with the whole Rocker situation is he now has to sit out another year.  If the team that drafts a player doesnt want to sign him for medical reasons, then he should be free to go sign with whomever he wishes.  Seems incredibly unfair to the player to force him to delay his professional career by an entire year.
Keith Law: Hold on – that’s not accurate. He had the choice to submit his MRI to MLB, and thus to all teams before the draft. Had he done so, and any team drafting him then declined to make him an offer of at least 40% of slot, he would be a free agent. He declined to submit the MRI, and this is the consequence of that action. This mechanism of submitting MRIs predraft is not perfect but it better protects player and team than the old system. If a player chooses not to use that system, he must accept the consequences of that choice. The draft itself is a labor-exploiting farce, but this mechanism is one of the few aspects of it that does protect the player’s rights.
Keith Law: What if some other team saw Rocker’s MRI and disagreed with the Mets’ doctors? Then he would have gone somewhere fairly high and gotten paid accordingly – maybe not what the Mets offered, but more than the $0 he has now. And if all teams saw the MRI and said “oh hell no,” he’s no worse off than he is today anyway.

Sam: Were you surprised at how much of a discount Henry Davis signed for?  With no clear cut #1 did the Pirates put out a number to 3-4 guys and he was the one who said yes?
Keith Law: Not surprised, not in this draft class without a clear-cut #1.

Marlin Guy: Hi Keith! What’s your evaluation of Jazz Chisholm at this point? Thanks!
Keith Law: No change. I still think he’s got a real chance to be a star.

Tom: Luis Garcia of the Nats looked great in AAA and even hit 2 homers last night. I know you’ve never been particularly bullish, but is there a chance he has really turned a corner offensively at just 21.
Keith Law: Unless there’s been some real change in his swing that I don’t know about, no, not really. I’m not a huge believer in players who spend a good amount of time in the majors and then go back down and rake in triple-A, facing far worse pitching than they did in the majors. Imagine if a player was promoted to double A, struggled badly, then was returned to high- or even low-A and mashed. You’d look askance at that performance too.

Tom: this may be more of a nate silver question, but do you think theres data to suggest that the anti-vaxxers, most of whom are GOP, that are passing away from COVID, are going to hurt future election results for GOP?
Keith Law: I’m sorry, you stole that take from Nate, although I’m glad it’s getting some visibility.

JP: What did you think of Luis Gil’s MLB debut?
Keith Law: Great fastball, not enough of anything else.

Appa Yip Yip: What’s up with Kevin Smith (of the Blue Jays, not Silent Bob)?
Keith Law: Now that is a swing change guy. Different player than he was pre-COVID (or at Maryland, for that matter). He’s gone from a 3 (nothing) to a 5 (everyday player).

Tom: Other than a not so fast fastball, gotta like what we see from braxton garrett. Is there no. 2 upside here?
Keith Law: No, there’s not. He’s been pretty lucky so far, and the stuff just hasn’t come all the way back post-surgery. I would love to be wrong – he pitched one of the best games I’ve ever seen from a HS pitcher – but even with another mph on his fastball his arsenal is still light.

Fitzy: Is Austin Martin still a top 100 prospect in your view? I believe a lot of my fellow Jays fans were too hung up on his pre-season ranking and believe we got absolutely fleeced for Berrios.
Keith Law: He was on the top 50 linked at the top of this post.

JG: JR Richard passed away last night.  Thoughts…  If he hadn’t had that stroke was he on a HOF trajectory?
Keith Law: Died of COVID-19. Get your vaccine, folks. And yes, I think he was, if he held up – he was throwing exceptionally hard for his era and he might have had the sort of arm problems we saw often at the time.

Jonesy: Should the Jays be doing everything in their power to extend Semien and Ray right now?
Keith Law: No. It all comes down to cost.

Dan: Granted it’s a selected sample size but the Tigers look like a good(!) team since April ended. How much should be attributed to finally having a competent manager as well as positive contributions from Baddoo etc?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t undersell the switch to a competent manager. Also some of the rebuild is starting to hit the majors now.

Jeff: After the Cubs’ firesale, where you would now rank the Cubs’ farm system?
Keith Law: Eyeballing it, around the median. Huge improvement over preseason.

Justin: Would you rather have Henry Davis+Lonnie White, or Leiter+Some College Senior for the identical $7.9 mil of bonus pool?
Keith Law: Davis and White, although I think Davis + Chandler is the better 1-2 combo. Hitters over pitchers, for one thing, and Davis > Leiter anyway.

OJ1977: Seems like Austin Martin’s prospect standing has really dropped, at least in the eyes of Jays management…has his ceiling dropped given his lack of a defensive position and absence of power?
Keith Law: I wrote that. All of it.

Mike: can brett baty stick at 3B long-term? 30 hr potential??
Keith Law: I think he has a real chance to stay at 3b, maybe 50/50, up from maybe 10-20% odds back in HS.

Jake: Thanks for the chat, Keith! In your estimation has Jake Eder shown enough to be a back end top 100 guy? If so, was he close to your updated top 50?
Keith Law: Yes and yes. Legit. Might be better than Meyer, really.

Dark Knight: Riley Greene performing well at AA as a 20 yr old is impressive.  Does he have enough power to hit 20+ hrs in the majors?
Keith Law: I would put the o/u at 25. He’s real. I think I’m seeing him tonight.

Steve Cohen: What do I do now?  The system seems pretty top heavy with high A and AA players.  The failure to get any trades done is a consequence of the top heavy system – the list of desirable prospects is short.  Missing on Kumar I assume is a huge mistake (so much for the opposite of lolMets). What does this mean for the system and the future?
Keith Law: see above on Rocker. It is just wrong to peg this as a Mets error when nobody but the team and Rocker’s group know what was in the medicals. They also swapped a lot of talent in previous deals. I still think they’re well positioned to continue contending into the next several years.

Tom: Kyle Stowers is putting up pretty big numbers in AA (although in only 161 PA).  Any hope for him?
Keith Law: Fourth OF. Seen him a bunch.

Andrew: How would you grade the O’s rebuild to date. When is it fair to start building expectations for the major league club?
Keith Law: It’s fair, not great, hurt by the fact that the veterans were all traded (generally for not enough return) before the new regime came in; the awful luck with Kjerstad; and a continued lack of any production from the international side.

Ira: How can the Mets ever build up a farm system when they purposely draft under slot value for the entire draft for the purpose of signing a top pick, and then not sign that pick? Seems to me if many teams were afraid of Rocker’s physical status and he dropped, then the Mets should have maybe picked a different player.
Keith Law: Revisionist history. Don’t know any teams that were “afraid of Rocker’s physical status.” However, I would argue the Mets should have taken Will Taylor or another high-bonus HS kid in the 11th round and handed him the money they didn’t give Rocker.

Jay: Of the things Theo Epstein has discussed for improving the game (moving the mound, limits on shifts, pitch clocks, limiting # of pitchers on the roster) do you like any of them and which do you think can have the biggest positive impact?
Keith Law: Pitch clocks are a mixed bag – they do move the game along in an appreciable way, but may increase pitcher injuries. I like limiting the number of pitchers on the roster to try to discourage too many mid-inning pitching changes. But if you really want to speed the game up, you need shorter commercial breaks, and nobody wants to touch that.

Newt: If Dermis Garcia ever got a season with 600 PAs in the majors, would he be the inaugural member of the 30 HR, 350K Club?
Keith Law: He has 40 homer power and would probably strike out 50% of the time, enough that he’d never sniff 30 or even 20 homers.

Sean: Hi Keith, anything in Detmers start that gave you pause on his upside?  Curve looked great but fastball didn’t seem to get many misses, even holding the mid 90s velo.  Maybe just command jitters in his first start?
Keith Law: I don’t like judging any pitcher on his first major league start.

Vin: Hi Keith. Thanks for these chats. How do you evaluate the job Kapler has done with the Giants? Are there specific things he’s doing differently now than when he was in Philly?
Keith Law: Entire organizational approach to hitting has changed under him. I think he’s the manager of the year. That club has no business being this good.

Dallas: There is a Voltaggio brother’s cooking competition on Discovery+ that’s fantastic. Nicky Lopez is past 2.0 WAR on both BR and FG and could finish around 3.0 WAR. If this is who he is, is that a starting 2B going forward or still more of a very quality utility player (as a lot of that WAR is based on SS defense). Thanks.
Keith Law: I think he’s an everyday guy.

Vin: Could Luis Matos make a leap into the top 100 next season?
Keith Law: Yes. I think he was my Giants sleeper prospect this year or maybe last year before the shutdown.

Guest: I thought the Mets had to offer Rocker 40% of the slot to get the pick last year? Did that rule change?
Keith Law: No, the rule is the same, but only applies if the player complies with the MRI program.

Guest: What do you think the PA should be aiming for in the next CBA? Reduced service time requirement to FA? Arb eligible earlier?
Keith Law: I mean, yes, all of the above. distributing more money to players with less than 6 years service time should be a goal – those are the players whose salaries are artificially suppressed by the current system.

Luke: Anecdotally, 80-grade tools seem more commonly placed on players for arm strength, speed, raw power. Less common for hit and glove. The latter are more difficult to measure and thus harder to have confidence in. But given 20-80 is based on a distribution, would we expect the same number of 80s league-wide for each tool?
Keith Law: 20-80 is not based on a distribution. That story has been retconned on to the scale.

Justin: Is Adam Frazier a pretty good comparison for Tucupita Marcano?  Maybe Marcano needs to bulk up a little bit to make that possible?
Keith Law: I hate comps but I don’t hate that one.

Justin: Do you think Hoy Park can be a 1.5 WAR type SS and/or Super Util?
Keith Law: No. Way under that one.

Tony: This might require a tinfoil hat on my end, but is there a chance that the Orioles are keeping Rutschman in Double A for the whole year, so they have a ready-made excuse for keeping him down next year, too? Given where we are in the calendar, it feels unlikely they’d promote him for three weeks
Keith Law: TFH. I don’t believe this for a second. I do wonder if they’re keeping him in Bowie because it’s the nearby affiliate and they’ve always tried to keep Bowie competitive.

Shaun: How have you seen Torkelson progress this year,’? Expected? Over expectations?
Keith Law: Looked very good at the Futures Game. Should see him tonight too.

Steve: Is a Sox fan and liked Madrigal, though not devastated to see him gone. As a scout, what makes you so certain that power can’t develop like it did with Jose Altuve or other similar bodied players? Is he just an outlier and it’s unfair to compare? What are the metrics that show potential power with maturation?
Keith Law: He doesn’t look anything at all like Altuve. Really – just look at their builds and frames. They’re both short. I’m 5’6″, Altuve is 5’5″ if that, but I couldn’t possibly be as muscular as Altuve was, even if you put me on a weight training program (and I wasn’t 48, etc., etc.). You need strength, including real hand and forearm strength, to hit for power, or even just to hit with any authority.

Ryan: Who do you think has higher upside between Jordan Lawlar and Corbin Carroll? As a Dbacks fan, I can’t remember the last time I was this excited for the future.
Keith Law: Carroll.

Reb Wiseau: Are you surprised that Jud Fabian didn’t sign with the Red Sox?
Keith Law: No, but that’s not to his credit. Dude punched out 79 times this year and was just as bad at the end of the year as he was at the beginning. He was lucky to get an offer of first round money. Now he’ll be an older 21 in what might be a stronger draft class next year. He’d better be WAY better at the plate to get that kind of payout again.

Ben: Is this season out of nowhere for Willy Adames, or did the Brewers get a real star at SS?
Keith Law: Top 100 prospect several times, on my breakouts list for 2020, so definitely not out of nowhere, but maybe a year late.

Andy: Anyone who thinks of Tommy John as riskless should look up Brady Aiken, who went from #1 overall pick to being out of baseball by 24.
Keith Law: Well, he had something wrong in his elbow that made TJ itself a riskier proposition. (He’s also still in Cleveland’s system, just on the IL.) But some players don’t come back all the way from TJ. And, in an extreme outlier, a pitcher at George Mason died after TJ surgery – I don’t know if it was an infection or bleeding or something else – which I think should remind us all that Tommy John surgery is surgery, and not minor surgery at that. No surgery is riskless.

Noah: Hi Keith, as always, thank you for your chats.  As a fellow anxiety-sufferer and believer in science and feminist, the baseball stuff is just the icing on the cake for me.  But my question is: given what Sandy Alderson has overseen in terms of hiring personnel with red flags (i.e. multiple  sexual harassment hires), why isn’t there more of an outcry for him to resign?  It seems that not only the media, the Mets organization, but also fans are just sweeping this under the rug and forgetting about it.
Keith Law: I’ve had a few people around MLB ask the same question. If Sandy was responsible, then why isn’t he being held accountable, and if he wasn’t responsible, well, why not? I don’t have an answer to that. I wouldn’t be shocked if he stepped aside at the end of this year, especially now that a few of his top lieutenants have been promoted/extended.

Brendan: Hi Keith! Its highly unlikely that to ever happen but in the wake of the Rocker situation I’ve seen a couple sport writers and many fans call for the end of the draft (unfair labor practices/manipulation and all). If that were to happen, what could be done to prevent all the top prospects from signing with one team? Perhaps a hybrid system where teams still receive the equivalent of their bonus pools and they can sign as many “draft picks” as they want with that money with fines and penalties similar to the international pool rules for exceeding your allotted money? Thanks!
Keith Law: Why would all of the top prospects sign with one team so they can fight for the finite amount of playing time available?

Dungeon Master: any change on Triston Casas evaluation this year? Results seem solid but not spectacular. Is he the Red Sox 1B by next summer? I know tough for a 1B to hit top 50, but hoping the bat is good enough to play there for a first division team.
Keith Law: No change. Good prospect, waiting for more thump to show up.

Ian: Any changes to the view of Nick Yorke and/or Blaze Jordan after some of their recent successes?
Keith Law: Small samples, and Jordan did it in the Florida Man League, but it’s all very promising, especially seeing Jordan show some power in games (while playing below sea level down there). Also don’t sleep on Brandon Walter. Delaware lefty, 26th rounder, now up to 97 with a starter look.

Mike: Any restaurant recommendations near Rehoboth/Dewey?
Keith Law: The Station & Eggcelent in Lewes. Rise Up coffee in Rehoboth. I try not to eat down at Rehoboth because it’s basically Grotto’s and Thrasher’s on an infinite loop.

Bradley: What are your thoughts on how the Cubs did overall on prospects received in their trades?  Specifically Madrigal and Heuer for Kimbrel?
Keith Law: I wrote up all my Cubs deadline thoughts here.

Evan R.: Astros prospect Hunter Brown…the next Walker Buehler?
Keith Law: I mean, Brown has great shit, top 25 prospect in baseball kind of shit … but he’s only had anything approaching average control for about six weeks now.

Sean: The Graveman trade broke our hearts, but this Abraham Toro guy seems like an infielder that can switch hit with power and speed. What do you see in him?
Keith Law: The trade of a journeyman reliever in the midst of his first really good season broke your hearts? I like Toro, more like a  multi-position utility guy who can play close to every day, but much prefer him to Graveman.

Coffee Drinker: You like coffee. I like coffee. What beans do you typically get and from where?
Keith Law: All over. I buy beans whenever I travel. Right now I’m using some Royal Mile Breakfast Jawn (light roast) beans for espresso and a Colombian from GIV coffee in Canton, CT, for pour-over.

Dark Knight: Dodgers have been giving Gavin Lux opportunities for couple years… do you see him more as a Carter Kieboom/ Biggio?  or still someone who will be an above avg regular?
Keith Law: Chance to be a star. Way better than those other two. Not even in the same league in tools or ability.

Sean: Any intel as to why the Red Sox didn’t beat the Yankees offer for Rizzo?  It seems like it wasn’t a prospect quality issue and the SSS results are…frustrating
Keith Law: Disagree. Prospects the Cubs got were good.

Mike: Along the same line as the Luis Garcia question – do you feel the same about Jose Barrero? He seems to be walking much more than he did in the past.
Keith Law: Yes, but I feel a little better about his power potential because it was always there.

Jon: Have you been able to see or hear anything new about any Cardinals prospects like Gorman, Liberatore, or Thompson?
Keith Law: I saw Gorman and Liberatore in Denver and wrote them up.

Mike: I’ve seen Riley Greene a bunch of times and see flashes of Eastern League top prospects Gregory Polanco and Dom Brown with him due to a slow bat, is he closer to a 5 level talent than a 6?
Keith Law: Uh … no, that’s not accurate at all.

John: Are you a believer in Samad Taylor? The power has kind of come out of nowhere.
Keith Law: He’s a real prospect. Possible regular.

Guest: Hi Keith– I was curious what, if anything, you’ve heard about George Valera this year. Walk rate seems pretty impressive for such a young guy at that level.
Keith Law: Very positive reports. Wanted to see him in the Futures Game too.

Josh: You seem fairly high on Randy Vasquez.  Where does he rank compared to endless amount of right handers the Yankees have like Medina, Gil, Way, Yoendrys Gomez, etc.
Keith Law: Less famous, more likely to be a starter than Medina, Gil, or Way, I think.

Dark Knight: Andre Jackson just pitched well in AA and promoted to AAA.  LA has Pepiot & Miller/Beeter that looks like they’ll be ready soon.  Will LA use the Gonsolin model for these guys?
Keith Law: I definitely would with Jackson, who is still ‘young’ in pitching experience (but not young for a prospect).

Mac: Are you surprised the White Sox moved on from Nick Madrigal so quickly?
Keith Law: No. They’re smart people. They saw his ceiling as well as his floor and made a calculated decision.

Chris: Trying not to read the stat lines on less heralded guys but do the Yanks have anything in Waldichuk, Wesneski, and Sears?  (Was gonna ask about Hauver, Otto, and Junk too but no longer care!)
Keith Law: I wrote up Wesneski, think he’s a reliever, but I know guys who have him in as a starter. Waldichuk is more on the starter/reliever bubble.

Alex In Austin: Is there any value in bringing up Witt Jr now to start getting challenged at the major league level or does it make more long term sense to wait to start the clock?
Keith Law: I’d love to see him up in September for that very reason. They might not do so for 40-man reasons but I think it’ll help his development to come up for a few weeks, even if he gets overpowered. He’ll make the adjustment.

Jason: Kelenic has been really bad in MLB and the list of other players who have begun their career this bad is very discouraging despite the great MiLB numbers. How much do you weigh historical trends when projecting his future?
Keith Law: Not at all, since we are in the highest K% era in the sport’s history.

Matt: Is the Jose Miranda breakout legit?
Keith Law: Been talking about him for years, and I think I said this in the last chat too. He can hit.

Ben: So a lot of Tiger’s fan understand the circumstances with Manning being up now, even though he is clearly not ready. But I saw a comparison between his statcast and Mike Pelfrey’s and made me sick. Even tho he isn’t ready, shouldn’t he be putting up better metrics than that as is? Has your overall outlook on his future changed?
Keith Law: He wasn’t 100% last year, with a sore shoulder, and then hasn’t been good at any level this year. My inference is that he never got ‘right.’ It seems awfully coincidental that he should get hurt for the first time, and then after that struggle like he hasn’t since he was still in extended spring training a year after the draft.

Dave Mayer: Hi Keith, Thoughts on Nick Lodolo?  Was he close on your mid season top 50?
Keith Law: Not close – top 100, not top 50. Big leaguer for sure, not a huge ceiling.

Jason: The Jays obviously soured on Austin Martin. Do you think the trade also speaks to them thinking highly of Groshans and how do you feel about Groshans future?
Keith Law: I don’t have great reports from this year on Groshans.

Arnold: In last week’s deadline deals, which team is most likely to regret the prospect they gave up for the two-month rental they received?
Keith Law: Wouldn’t shock anyone if Martin became a star after all. If you want a slightly more obscure name, Kevin Alcantara is a longshot, but also probably has the most upside of all the guys the Cubs got.

Roger: What do you think is the ETA on Volpe and does he have what it takes to stick at SS?
Keith Law: Could be up by end of 2022; my best guess is he’s good enough to stay at short, maybe even be a 55 defender there, but that the Yankees (or whoever) would try to get a 60 or better guy to replace him and move him to second. He’s not going to hurt you with his glove, though.

Barry: I’ve read The Inside Game and know your thoughts on drafting high school pitchers. Do you think the industry agrees with you and maybe the Phillies think they found a market inefficiency or (based on recent history) are they just bad at drafting?
Keith Law: I know some execs agree with me, but obviously not all do, and if nobody is taking HS pitchers in the first round at all, that would probably change the data, right? Suddenly if there are only 1 or 2 HS arms going in the first round each year, we might find their failure rate is similar to that of other player types.

Andy: Could the Mets have seen the MRI on Rocker, said nothing, signed him, rested him due to a full college season and then tried to trade him in the offseason? Would that have gone afoul of disclosure rules, even though he didn’t have an injury per se?
Keith Law: Other teams would have asked to see the MRI.

Ryan: Can Touki still be a #2 or better starter for the Braves?
Keith Law: He has that potential. I think he has ace stuff, really, but prior to those two starts when he came back this year (before the one against the Brewers), he’d never really shown the command to be a starter. It was always a bet on ridiculous stuff and +++ athleticism.

Dark Knight: Is Josh Winder for real?  Has a chance to be a #3?
Keith Law: Yes.

Ryan: What happened to Hiura? Does he just need a change of scenery?
Keith Law: The Brewers tried to turn him into a big launch-angle, swing-up for power guy, and it has ruined him as a hitter. He’s a zero at the plate right now. I don’t know anyone who could hit the way he’s swinging. It’s aggravating – this kid was going to make a ton of money just hitting for average with lots of doubles, and someone took that away from him to chase the latest fad. Swing optimization has worked wonders for some players, but it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Buck: Does Rowdy Tellez have at least platoon potential or not even that?
Keith Law: Not really. A platoon DH isn’t worth the roster spot.

ssinole: What are your thoughts on Andrew Vaughn? Learning a new position,  playing it pretty well and now he’s starting to mash RHP.
Keith Law: Big fan. Thought for bat alone he was better than Rutschmann, but Adley had the positional value.

Zac: Even if Jackson Jobe becomes the greatest pitcher of all time, doesn’t Al Avila still deserve criticism for taking a huge risk at 3? I’m sure if Jobe becomes a star, people will compliment Avila for the pick when he actually should be criticized.
Keith Law: Yes, that’s a process vs results issue. This was not a great process, given who else was on the board and the base rate of HS pitchers. It may still yield great results.

Dave: A lot of people seem to think that the A’s to Vegas is going to happen. Is that really a great market, especially considering Lake Mead is drying up and they already have two pro teams?
Keith Law: Worst market. Bad demographics, bad weather, and as you said, too much competition already.
Keith Law: The NBA has been quite savvy about moving into new markets, and they haven’t toyed with this idea yet. Says something.

Danny: I read on Baseball America that Austin Wells’s defense is looking rough? Have you heard similar sentiments and where would you move him if he’s not a catcher?
Keith Law: Said that before the draft. He can really hit but he’s not a catcher.

Paul: Reading your reviews, you mentioned Fabian has some big holes in his swing. Do you think  he jumps up to the top of the first round next year?
Keith Law: Extremely unlikely. Can’t say never, but he has to make some huge adjustments that he didn’t make this year, and he’ll be evaluated against a higher standard for his experience level.

Dark Knight: Seth Beer the future 1B for ARI as soon as next year?  Can he be the prototypical power bat at the corner?
Keith Law: I don’t buy it. Below average defensive 1B, for one thing.

Kretin: Chris Rodriguez seemed to do ok in his first MLB start. Do you think he will be durable enough to stick as a starter?
Keith Law: Great arm, tough delivery and history of back problems make me skeptical.

CVD: Surprised by the James Wood overslot?
Keith Law: Floored. Area scouts I know were very wary of him.

Justin: What’s the deal with Bryse Wilson?  Is he a guy who needs to move to relief to see if the stuff ticks up?
Keith Law: No, the velocity isn’t the issue, but the secondary stuff is. Eager to see if working with a new coaching staff/org can help him develop a better slider, in particular.

Mike: It’s still a small sample, but to clarify the two homers Luis Garcia hit last night were vs. the Phillies, not in AAA
Keith Law: I mean …

Ken: Have you written about Jose Miranda at all? Just read a Gleeman post noting he has the best OPS for a minor leaguer in the orgs history. Curious how this boosts his stock.
Keith Law: Several times. He’s been on my Twins rankings for a few years.

Jerome: Have you been watching Olympic baseball? Thoughts on kazmir thinking he can pitch in the MLB again
Keith Law: Not a single pitch.

Zach: What will it take for there to be actual, impactful changes to the minor league system a la the Astros providing housing for all their minor leaguers? I know it’s a battle between billionaires wanting to cheap out as much as possible vs protecting their investments, is there anyway we can help move the needle?
Keith Law: Public pressure. Britt Ghiroli’s article today should help. MLB did an end run around labor laws to get minor leaguers declared “seasonal employees.” The only thing that will change their minds is public pressure to do so.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – thank you all so much for reading. I’ll have a scouting notebook up in the next few days for subscribers.

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→ August 5, 2021
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Music update, July 2021.

With a slew of artists hitting the road this fall, releasing new albums in the next 2-3 months, or both, July turned out to offer a cornucopia of strong singles, including a couple of unexpected tracks from familiar names. As always, you can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Jonah Nilsson feat. Steve Vai – Diamond Ring. Nilsson is one-third of the Swedish jazz-pop (jazzy-pop?) group Dirty Loops, a classically trained musician who sought out guitar virtuoso Vai for the solo at the end of this incredibly catchy, funk-infused gem that is easily one of the best pop songs of 2021.

Little Simz – I Love You, I Hate You. This is the fourth track we’ve heard so far from the British rapper’s upcoming second album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, due out September 3rd, and like the first single “Introvert,” the lyrics are intensely personal.

Amyl and the Sniffers – Guided by Angels. This Aussie punk act’s name is so anachronistic I’m almost forced to admire it. This is the catchy lead single from their upcoming second album Comfort to Me, due out September 10th.

CHVRCHES – Good Girls. I’m just excited for the Scottish trio’s fourth album, Screen Violence, now that we’ve heard three great singles from it; it drops August 27th.

Slow Pulp – At It Again (Again). A quiet track befitting the name of this Chicago indie group, “At It Again (Again)” was one of two tracks cut from their debut album Moveys that the band is releasing this fall as the Deleted Scenes EP.

Maisie Peters – Psycho. I’m not in love with the ableist language here, but this track, co-written with the head of Peters’ record label, some bloke named Ed Sheeran, does a great job of showcasing Peters’ voice and her skill with creating images around stories of teenaged romance.

Nas feat. Cordae and Freddie Gibbs – Life is Like a Dice Game. Okay, but which dice game? That’s Pretty Clever? Encore? Yahtzee? I would play a dice game with these guys. I think.

Big Boi, Sleepy Brown, and Killer Mike – Lower Case (no cap). This is the good stuff from Big Boi, reminiscent of Speakerboxxx.

Abstract Mindstate – A Wise Tale. Kanye West got this duo, last active about 15 years ago, back together by contributing beats and agreeing to produce their new album, Dreams Still Inspire, out this Friday.

Wye Oak – Electricity. I like a lot of Wye Oak’s stuff, but when they increase the tempo and the layering of their instruments, it grabs me more immediately, as did this, the third single from them so far in 2021.

Inhaler – Totally. Bono’s kid may never quite get out of his father’s shadow, but Inhaler is worth listening to on their own merits, not just their lineage. It Won’t Always Be Like This, their debut album, also features the 2019 single “My Honest Face,” which was #63 on my ranking of the top 100 songs from that year.

Gang of Youths – unison. This track also appears on total serene, the new three-track EP from this Aussie indie-rock act, who’ve become extremely popular in their home country.

Foxing – Draw Down the Moon. The title track from the indie quintet’s fifth album, due out this Friday, has a big hook in the chorus and a subtle groove in much of the percussion work.

Lorde – Stoned at the Nail Salon. I can’t decide if I like this track or not. I’m including it anyway, because if nothing else, it’s interesting.

Thrice – Scavengers. Thrice is back with a new record, written during the lockdown, and will be back on the road this fall. I’ll be there when they visit Philly.

The Lottery Winners – Sunshine. A candy-sweet track that lives up to its title, and another little pop banger from this Mancunian quartet, who just keep churning out great song after great song.

Joy Oladokun – look up. Oladokun’s first album in five years, in defense of my own happiness, mostly comprises her signature R&B-tinged folk music, but there are occasional moments where she stretches her voice and shows more of its power and range, as on this anthemic, upbeat track.

The War on Drugs – Living Proof. Perhaps I don’t know TWoD’s catalog enough, but I don’t recall many intimate ballads in the vein of this track. Their fifth album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, will be out on October 29th.

Turnstile – BLACKOUT. These Baltimore punks, who sound a whole shit-ton like Meantime-era Helmet on this track, will release their third album, Glow On, on August 27th.

Iron Maiden – The Writing on the Wall. Bruce Dickinson sounds every bit of 62, but the music here is still tremendous – a bit slower in tempo than peak Maiden, with an intro that recalls that of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.”

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→ July 31, 2021
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Stick to baseball, 7/31/21.

I had a lot of content this week around the trade deadline for subscribers to The Athletic, including:

I also wrote up my notes from a game between the Yankees’ and Pirates’ AA affiliates. I was planning to do a chat but the pace of trades made that impossible.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was Slate‘s Josh Levin, talking about his One Year: 1977 podcast episode about baseball broadcaster Mary Shane and his book The Queen. You can subscribe on iTunes and Spotify.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Whistle Mountain, a medium-heavy worker placement game from the designer of the train game Whistle Stop.

I returned to my email newsletter, with a note on why I’ve been absent from there and largely from here over the last six weeks. Also, my second book The Inside Game is out in paperback and available from bookshop.org or wherever you buy books.

And now, the links…

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→ July 24, 2021
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Stick to baseball, 7/24/21.

I had two new posts this week for subscribers to The Athletic – an update of my ranking of the top 50 prospects in baseball, including recently-drafted players, and a look at which teams just drafted their new #1 prospects. I did include unsigned draftees on the former list, which is not my typical practice, but with the signing deadline so late this year (and maybe in all future years) I saw more value in this method than in pretending those players didn’t exist; if someone I ranked doesn’t sign, I’ll update the rankings with a new player.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Snakesss, the new social-deduction/trivia game from Phil Walker-Harding (designer of Cacao, Gizmos, Silver & Gold, and Imhotep). It’s quick and fun and appropriately silly, definitely the best party game I’ve tried so far in 2021.

On The Keith Law Show this week, I talked with Fangraphs draft analyst and prospect expert Eric Longenhagen about this year’s MLB draft. You can listen & subscribe on iTunes and Spotify as well.

And now, the links…

  • The New York Times explains how the quack Joseph Mercola, who has been spreading bogus anti-science information online for at least a quarter century, is now profiting by lying about COVID-19 vaccines. He should be de-platformed everywhere.
  • Anti-vaxxers love to claim that vaccine mandates violate “the Nuremberg Code.” They’re wrong, of course – but I’m sure they understand the power of invoking something related to the Nazi regime.
  • The Washington Post explains how the despotic ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the UAE used the Israeli spyware product Pegasus to track and abduct his own daughter after she attempted to flee the country.
  • PragerU, the right-wing extremist site that distributes conservative “educational” videos online, has been pushing its content into schools as well through direct outreach to teachers and parents.
  • An Alabama doctor wrote about patients begging for the vaccine as they’re dying of COVID-19. Where are the consequences for the politicians – like Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who was quick to sign a bill that banned so-called “vaccine passports” just two months ago – who discouraged vaccinations, or the people spreading misinformation online about the vaccines? It’s easy to mock the ignorant, but someone had to put the wrong ideas in their heads.
  • It looks like Southern Republicans in power are belatedly getting religion on vaccines, as the threat of an unvaccinated South begins to undermine any progress we’ve made against COVID-19.
  • The great Dr. Peter Hotez explains the triple-headed monster that President Biden and all pro-vaccination efforts face – disinformation groups, the money that funds them, and state actors like Russia that help spread anti-vaccine nonsense.
  • A Trump-supporting vaccine denialist in Massachusetts died of COVID-19 last week.
  • Coal miners in Alabama have been on strike for over three months, seeking better pay and improved safety conditions. Why has there been no media coverage of it?
  • This may be an unpopular take, but I do not see the point of putting the couple whose gender-reveal party sparked a deadly wildfire in prison. It’s not going to undo any damage, it’s not going to bring the firefighter who lost his life trying to stop the fire back, and I don’t think it’s going to deter future idiots from doing the same thing any more than massive fines would. It’s a twisted sort of revenge, and just means the state has to incur the cost of keeping the couple in prison (if they’re convicted and sentenced).
  • A fundamendalist Christian church in Ireland with a history of spreading anti-Semitic views (e.g., that Jews are manipulating the stock market, and that Jews started the COVID-19 pandemic) has used an Irish law to have one of their critics arrested on charges of ‘inciting hate’ against them. Yes, a hate group is using a law designed to stop hate crimes to silence one of their critics.
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